


Carnival of Rust

by Izzyzal (orphan_account)



Series: Fletch and Jade [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Canon Divergence Everywhere, Carnival from Hell, Child Abuse, Clint Barton Has an Accent, Free Sandwiches, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hulkeye - Freeform, Kid Bruce Banner, Kid Clint Barton, M/M, Things get set on fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 15:10:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Izzyzal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bruce Banner was sold to the Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders as a boy, he met an archer he adored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken Glass and Free Sandwiches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-slash Hulkeye. This is sort of a prequel, and I wanted to make it a series rather than one really long fic. There will probably be underage themes later on but nothing explicit. The mature warning is for child abuse more than anything else. So much canon divergence, y’all. Title is ripped shamelessly from my favorite Poets of the Fall song. If you’d like to follow me on Tumblr, [you can follow me on Tumblr](http://hierophantasmic.tumblr.com/) and I’ll post updates and stuff.

It had been an accident. Anyone could see that as clear as day. An accident.

No one to blame, certainly not the victim.

The door to the laboratory shouldn’t have been left open. The door to the basement, as well, should have been locked securely. But it was late and the man had been locked up for days and he hadn’t been thinking clearly. Like the housewife who couldn’t remember if she’d left the oven on, he’d thought he remembered locking up because he locked up every time he left.

A bottle of whiskey quickly made him forget any other thoughts.

The house was silent when the scream cut through the air, and the man jerked from where he had been dozing in his chair. What the fuck was that kid doing now? His eyes moved to the analog clock ticking away much too loudly on the wall. Three thirty-five. Or three thirty-four. He couldn’t tell. Too fucking early.

The scream came again and he stumbled in his half-asleep, half-drunk state out of the chair. The bottle of whiskey tilted and swayed, but landed back on its base as the man gripped the walls and headed quickly towards the sound. The door to the basement was wide open and he let out a loud curse.

_Hadn’t I locked it?_ he thought to himself, squinting as he registered the dim yellow light on in the basement. Fucking kid. He gripped the railings to assist him on his way down the stairs and nearly fell twice even as he heard the high cries and choking sobs from...

Fucking hell, they were coming from his lab.

He bashed the half-open door against the wall in his haste to enter it. The floor was littered with glass and chemicals and he stopped on the outer ring, eyes moving to take in the scene before him. The boy was kneeling on the floor with something broken in his hand, shards of glass sticking out of his palm, a hissing and bubbling sound coming from his flesh.

“Bruce!” the man practically screamed, and the boy’s sobbing choked off in a scared squeak, his tearful brown eyes flicking up to the man. He mouthed something that very well could have been ‘daddy’ before the man reached out over the mess to grab the boy by the clean wrist, yanking him hard enough to lift him off the ground and ignoring his second scream as the pop of a dislocated elbow filled the room.

He dragged the four-year-old out of the room and to the large paint sink, using cleaners to wash away the solution and screaming at him the whole time.

\----------

It was two weeks later that the first change happened.

The boy was crying again and the man lashed out. The boy was afraid, and he began changing. It was gradual and it was only in places, but it was horrifying. Despite the hot August weather, he put the boy in a sweater, gloves, and long pants, and forbade him from ever taking them off.

After a while, he had to add a coat with a hood.

After another while, he simply had to keep the boy in the house all the time.

\----------

Six years later and with no cure in sight, the man gave up.

The Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders was passing through Dayton on its biannual tour of Ohio and the man made his way to their camp with his bundled up atrocity.

There was a brief discussion. He stripped the boy, and the change in the carnies’ tones was amazing. There was another brief discussion and money changed hands.

The boy would no longer be his problem, and for that, he was grateful.

\----------

It was so cold. Bruce shifted slightly on the bed of straw he had found himself on, shuffling back further into the corner of his train car. Shivering, he pulled the blanket tighter around his mostly-bare form, ducking his face into the corner he’d pulled up over his head.

Terror. Pure, unadulterated terror was coursing through his veins, causing his breathing to stutter and his hands to shake as he tucked them around himself. He could feel his skin changing in places and closed his eyes tightly, fighting back the plead of ‘no, please’ that no one would hear and would go unheeded anyway. A soft whimper escaped his lips as he ducked his chin further.

Maybe, if he curled in on himself enough, he would disappear.

He could hear no more sounds outside, and the car had stopped. Moonlight streamed in through the long, thin window that ran the length of one side of the car emblazoned with the words ‘The Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders’, protected by the bars that ran vertically from one side to the other and cast the light into rectangles across the center of the straw-strewn floor. How long had it been? What time was it?

He swallowed back a groan and exhaled through his nose, feeling pain in his side every time he inhaled. He hurt. He was hungry. No one had come to check on him since he had been flung in here who knew how many hours ago, and already the fear that he would be left for dead or worse was filling him with a sense of dread he hadn’t felt since...

...since...

Bruce’s head snapped up at a soft hissing sound. Before he could register it, the sound was repeated, with more urgency and stronger. A snake, almost, but not. He bundled himself further into the blanket and willed the whatever-it-was to go away.

The sound happened for the third time, loud enough now that he could hear it for what it was. _“Psst!”_

He started slightly and barely turned his head towards the window. There was nothing there, and he ducked back under the blankets until he heard a thud against the side of his train car. His head snapped up as small hands – they looked like hands, at least – seized onto the bars and something sounded as though it was scrambling up the outer side of the car. Panicking, Bruce made himself as small as possible as he folded himself into the blankets, disappearing into the shadows as best he could. He didn’t know who it was, but he wanted them to go away.

There was silence for a few moments and he nearly felt himself relaxing. It was something he would not have allowed himself if he hadn’t been so tired and weak and hungry, but there was no taunting, no shouting, no derisive words. Nothing calling him-

“Are you the monster?”

The whispered voice was young, and Bruce couldn’t tell if it was male or female, but the question made his blood run cold. He didn’t answer, turning to his internal mantra. _Go away go away go away go away go away._

“Hey, hey, are you the monster?”

_Go away go away go away go away go away..._

“You don’ look like a monster.”

Bruce opened his eyes halfway and turned his head slightly; not enough to see the kid, but to hear... them?... better.

“You’re kinda small for a monster, huh?” The voice had a Southern twang to it, and the s’s were hissed in the distinct manner of someone missing one or both of their top front teeth. When Bruce didn’t answer, the voice continued. “I knew Barney was lyin’. You ain’t no monster, are you? He owes me a nickel ‘cause yer jus’ a kid, huh? I done told him so. Hey, hey, look at me!”

Bruce slowly turned his head, one eye revealed enough for him to see what he was looking at. It was a boy, he decided, though with the moonlight his features were a little hard to pick out. His hair was short-cropped and looked almost white and he had a smattering of freckles that disappeared into the shadows cutting his face into deep relief. The boy was grinning, though, and his grin widened when Bruce looked over at him.

“See?” the boy said, the word whistling through the gap made by his missing teeth. “Yer not scary, no sir. What’s yer name? How old are ya? Why’re ya here, yer not an aminal.” He grinned wider, somehow. “Folks call me Fletch. You kin call me Fletch, too. ‘Cause I’m a marksman. I’m seven an’ me an’ my brother live here too.”

Bruce didn’t answer. Fletch, definitely, was not this kid’s name. Maybe that was part of being in a carnival.

Fletch slipped a bit on the side of the train car, all but his hands disappearing from sight as Bruce heard his feet frantically working on the side to pull himself back up. He emerged again, hooking a thin arm around the bars to help keep himself up. “Hey, hey, I’ll tell ya what. Iffin’ you tell me yer name, or how old ya are, I’ll bring ya food. Okay?”

Bruce stared at the boy. The boy stared back. He wanted to ignore him, and he almost did, but a twist in his stomach nearly had him doubling over in pain. “...ten,” he said quietly, his voice rough.

“Ten?” Fletch seemed to perk up before he nodded. “Okay, I’ll go get ya food.”

He released his hold on the bars and dropped, landing with a thud. Bruce heard the soft pad of his feet as he ran away, disappearing quickly.

He told himself he’d probably never see that boy again. It was just as well. With a quiet sigh, he tucked himself back into his blanket cocoon and closed his eyes. He was substantially less frightened now, at least, though he felt no less miserable. Still, the boy had at least one positive effect, and he was determined to take even a small comfort in it.

Bruce had managed to drop into a fitful half-sleep when he heard the hissing again. “Psst! Not-monster!” He turned his head slightly again just in time to see the boy’s hands – or, rather, hand – appear and latch onto the bars again. Fletch hauled himself up more slowly this time, scrambling to keep purchase with just one arm slowly edging around the bars and his feet slipping occasionally. He was breathing hard and Bruce could see that his freckled cheeks were flushed from running in the cool night air, but he offered a bright grin when he saw the other boy.

“Here,” he said as he wiggled his other hand through the bars, holding out what looked like some kind of a sandwich. “M’not s’posed to be here so I can’t bring ya no wrappers or nothin’, but I brought ya food! C’mere, take it, it’s okay, yer still hungry, right?”

Bruce stared at him, blinking slowly. Had he really brought him food? And if he wasn’t supposed to be here, had he risked being in trouble not once, but twice? What was the matter with him? Bruce wasn’t worth getting in trouble for, particularly not for someone who didn’t even know him. He wanted to shout at Fletch, make him leave, tell him that he was a monster and dangerous and he needed to go, but the smell of the food had reached him over the scent of the straw and his stomach twisted again.

“Come on,” Fletch said, drawing out the last word with a winded grunt. “Cain’t hang on with one arm forever, not-monster!”

Snapping out of it, Bruce slowly got to his feet, keeping his blanket wrapped tightly around himself, and padded to the other side of the train car. He reached out tentatively and took the sandwich, a bit squashed by Fletch’s fingers. Part of him said it might have been poisoned, or worse. Another part of him said that it didn’t particularly matter, because if it was poisoned then he wouldn’t have to be stuck here anyway. The moment he took the sandwich, Fletch’s hand moved up to grab onto the bar and he adjusted himself so he was hanging on better.

“I hope ya like it,” Fletch said, nodding towards the sandwich. “S’all I could find, an’ I don’t think no one’ll miss it. So eat it, okay? All of it!”

Bruce couldn’t think of anything to say except... “Thank you,” he mumbled, backing up into the shadows again.

“Yeah!” Fletch said brightly, as though he brought the quarantined freak show acts food when he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near them all the time. For all Bruce knew, he did. “I’ll bring ya more food tomorrow, kay? Eat!”

The whispered words stopped as Fletch released the bars and landed on the ground with another thud, running off quickly. Bruce listened to him go before wolfing the entire sandwich down in four bites. It wasn’t enough, but it took the edge off of his hunger and kept his dozing from being quite so fitful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know how to write an Iowan accent so Little Clint is going to sound more Texan than anything else. Sorry about that.
> 
> In other news, when I was adding character tags, 'Howard Wolowitz' was a suggestion. I don't think that should ever happen. Ever. Even if Bruce and Leonard would probably get along really, really well. No, Tumblr, stop shipping it, it shouldn't happen.


	2. The Boy-Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, time to write more lil’ Clint accent. He’s just damn adorable in my head. I hope it comes across in the writing. Sorry this took so long to release, I’ve been down with both the flu and pneumonia these past weeks. Also, for the rather jumpy way this chapter is written: it’s all from Bruce’s POV, which is rather unstable at the moment. Warnings of child abuse in this chapter. I doubt it’s anything triggery, but still, warning is there.

The day had been long and hot, sunlight heating the wood of his train car like a large oven. Sweat beading on his forehead and rolling into his eyes nearly made Bruce forgo his protective blanket, but he knew better than to release even that small comfort. As if rebelling against the heat, he bundled further into the blanket and, subsequently, the corner that he had lodged himself into.

By midday, hunger was gnawing at his gut with enough force that he felt nauseous. As the sun sank lower and lower the pain increased and Bruce found himself praying for someone, _anyone_ , to come and give him food. He wondered... if he was a monster, maybe they thought that he didn’t need to eat.

He thought, fleetingly, of bright eyes and a gap-toothed grin and wondered if Fletch would be visiting him again when the train stopped. It occurred to him, then, that he had no assurance that the train _would_ stop until they got to their next destination. Even if it did, he couldn’t be sure that Fletch would even come back.

Where were they even going? There was no one around, so it wasn’t as though he could ask. His mind was reeling wildly as he bundled himself tighter in his blanket, wondering... where would they stop? What would happen to him if they didn’t? What would happen to him if they _did_?

The rocking of the train and the swirling of his thoughts, mixing together into a nonsensical blend, lulled him back into unconsciousness.

\---

_“Psst!”_

Bruce jerked awake, the sharp sound cutting through half-formed, foggy nightmares like a blade of light through a heavily drawn curtain. He heard a soft intake of breath even as he turned his head quickly, attempting to make sense of his surroundings.

Of course. The train. The transaction. The barred window.

His eyes moved upwards, slightly.

The barred window. Fletch.

“I’m real sorry,” Fletch was saying, his stage whisper tinged with a bit of urgency, or perhaps panic. “I didn’t mean t’ scare ya. I was just, y’know, tryin’a get yer attention. I know you were sleepin’, so I’m real sorry but... ain’t ya hungry?”

Bruce blinked at the smaller boy hanging through the barred window as best he could. He could hear the familiar sounds of his feet scraping against the outer wall as he tried to keep himself up and in his hand... another sandwich. When he saw Bruce looking at it, he offered it out. “Don’t got nothin’ else, but c’mon, take it.”

The night before he’d been afraid of what might have been in the sandwich, but he knew now that the boy before him didn’t mean him any harm. Well, either that, or he was trying to lull him into a sense of security. Honestly, he didn’t particularly care either way.

When he took the sandwich this time, Fletch didn’t disappear. He gave him another gap-toothed grin and said, “Tell me your name?” It wasn’t a question, but the inflection went up at the end. A suggestion, maybe.

Bruce backed up and sat on the hay again, taking a bite of the sandwich and staring at the boy. He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.

Fletch let out a long, put-upon sigh, but he didn’t stop smiling. “Yer stubborn, I’ll give ya that. My brother’d say yer hard-headed. He says I am too. He says I’m stubborn as a mule and ain’t nobody gonna make me do what I don’t wanna do. He says that an’ me, I jus’ look at him an’ smile and say, yup.”

Bruce’s lips twitched in the ghost of a smile as he took another large bite of the sandwich.

“Like, iffin’ someone found me here, they’d be mad as a wet hen, no shit,” Fletch continued before biting down on his lip. “Uh, damn. ...damn again, I ain’t s’posed to talk like that, don’ tell no one I did, kay?”

Bruce nodded to him. What did it mean? He would keep his secret and wouldn’t go running off to tell someone? He didn’t talk to anyone anyway? He never saw anyone so it hardly mattered what Fletch told him? Whatever it meant, Fletch took his own interpretation and grinned again.

He finished the sandwich, listening as Fletch went on about where he was and where they were going. He was from Iowa and had an older brother. He called himself a sharp shooter and he worked with a bow and arrow, and apparently, he “didn’t never miss a target”. He babbled on about the carnival itself and others who worked there, people he had never heard of and didn’t know if he would ever meet. He said they’d left Ohio and they were going to Virginia towards the coast. He babbled about how he wanted to see the ocean and he talked about all the fish, and when he did finally leave, it was with a promise to come back the next night.

\---

Fletch did, in fact, come back the next night. And the night after that. Each time he brought a sandwich with an apology that he couldn’t bring more than that, and he babbled about the places he’d been and what he remembered of Iowa and what had happened in his car on the train that day. He went on about the people he’d met and the food he’d tried (as well as the food he’d never try again) and how different places looked during different seasons.

The fifth day, the train came to a stop in the middle of the day. There was activity, a lot of activity, too much for it just to be the “main acts” (as they called themselves) getting out to stretch their legs and wander around and socialize. There were things moving, things being unpacked, and Bruce realized with a sick level of certainty that they were setting up... whatever it was that they did.

He’d never seen a carnival or a circus in his life. They’d come to town, but his father had never wanted to take him somewhere with so many people. He didn’t know what to expect.

Fletch came back that night, with his sandwich and his apology. He didn’t stay, however. He said he couldn’t, he gave another apology for that, but another voice called to him and he cursed again and then he was gone.

Bruce didn’t sleep well that night.

\---

The morning was another flurry of activity. It brought a sound, strange and unfamiliar to him after nearly a week of isolation: the sound of the large wooden door of his car sliding open.

The sounds grew louder. Talking, laughing, music. People, so many people, guests of the carnival? No time to think about it as two men came in and hauled him up to his feet. Fear. He clung to his blanket but they didn’t try to take it from him. Relief at that. He was half led, half carried up a set of wooden stairs and ended up... behind a stage, why was he behind a stage?

He heard a man’s voice, strong, confident, but he could barely make out what he was saying. Ladies and gentlemen, he said, more than once. Applause, laughter, more words. Frightening, shocking, the man was saying. One of the men moved to a wooden slat on the back of the stage and hauled it open. Bruce was shoved forward with such force that he lost his balance. His blanket was torn from him, leaving him in nothing but a pair of brown pants, loose, filthy from having been worn for days on end with no change or cleaning.

As he hit the ground, the voice of the man was so much clearer as it cried, “I give you... The Boy Monster!”

A gasp resounded and Bruce looked up. People, so many people, and they were all staring at him through bars. No, he was staring at them through bars. He pushed himself up on his hands and looked around. A cage, that was what he had been shoved into. Behind him was nothing but solid wood, the slat having been slammed back into place. Over to the left and to the right, other cages, but they were empty. Who belonged in them? Why was he here, what had happened?

Someone in the crowd said something, yelled something, and something hit the front of his bars. Bruce shuffled back, a spray of popcorn showering over him, and he began trembling. No, not now. No blanket, no coat, no way to hide it, but he could already feel it happening. The man was speaking even as a few women screamed.

It looks like a child, but do not be fooled – it is truly a monster.

Do not worry, it cannot harm you!

The fear banked in his stomach the past days flared to life at another scream and Bruce stared at his arms. Pale skin swelling in patches, turning a mottled green, deforming his body, misshaping him. Places of hideous monstrosity sewn onto the body of a thin, terrified boy. He tilted his head back as the pain began to overtake him and let out a strangled sound.

It was half a scream and half a roar, but not enough of either to stop the gleeful shrieks and gasps of the crowd below him.

\---

He was dragged from the cage ten minutes later.

He was thrown back in that afternoon.

He was dragged from the cage fifteen minutes later.

He was thrown back in that evening.

He was dragged from the cage ten minutes later.

He was thrown into his train car.

Fletch didn’t come back that night. Someone else brought him food. He didn’t see them.

The next day was the same.

And the next.

And the next.

\---

They packed up and began moving the next day. He heard vague words about a destination. South Carolina. And then four days of that again. And then they’d move again, and then four days of that.

Bruce cowered underneath his blanket, his body shaking with dry sobs, unable to cry any more. He’d cried before the second crowd he’d faced. They hadn’t cared.

The third crowd had been full of drunks. They’d smelled like his father and they’d thrown rotten vegetables and yelled horrible things.

And now he was alone again. His hands were scraped raw from being thrown to wooden floors so much. He was bruised and filthy, he’d been hit every time he’d tried to fight being dragged from his car or thrown to the stage, and he’d thrown up everything that he’d been fed (trays of food barely recognizable as food and not as good as Fletch’s sandwiches).

Fletch. Had Fletch seen what a monster he was and left him? Had he been caught and told to stay away from him? Had he gotten bored? Fletch was gone, or was he not?

He heard nothing on the side of the car. No one called to him.

The night was quiet.

\---

The next day was quiet, too.

Bruce had watched the sun pass in the sky as they traveled south, the air getting steadily warmer and still smelling of salt. He hated the ocean, now. He’d been able to see the ocean from the cage.

The second day of five. He hoped it was five. Three more days to lay by himself, curled beneath his blanket, thinking of nothing. Maybe refuse food, maybe starve to death. Would people pay to see a starving monster-boy?

That night was quiet. Quiet until the sound of the wooden wall scraping scared him out of his half-sleep. Bruce scrambled back into the corner, whimpering, dragging the blanket tighter around himself, waiting for the big men to come into the car and drag him away again.

But there was no big man. There was only a small man, a small boy, who pulled himself up and slid the door closed as quietly as he could.

“Didn’t lock it.” That was Fletch’s voice. Bruce swallowed, his throat sticking, and peeked around the edge of his blanket. That was Fletch, holding a bag and a towel that looked soaking wet. He turned to him and frowned, tilting his head to the side. “...not-monster, ain’t they feedin’ you yet...?”

When Bruce didn’t answer, Fletch sighed and moved to the middle of the car, dropping into a sitting position and keeping his voice at a whisper. “Ain’t s’posed ta be talkin’ to ya, so I really ain’t s’posed ta be in yer car. But, uh, I ain’t seen no one come in ta check on ya, an’...” He trailed off before tentatively extending his hand. “I ain’t gonna hurt ya. C’mere, please? I wanna help.”

He saw how Bruce flinched from the outstretched hand, but he didn’t move away. He didn’t move closer, either, leaving the decision up to Bruce. In the end, the fear of being alone and the pain the men had caused and the absolute desperate clawing choking need to have someone look at him and talk to him and touch him without fear won him over. He shuffled closer and tentatively took Fletch’s hand, though he didn’t move the blanket away from himself.

Fletch smiled at him; it was a smile as tentative as the touch Bruce offered, but it was a smile nevertheless and it warmed Bruce through to his bones. His smile flickered after a moment and he turned Bruce’s hand over, inspecting the skinned, red palms with wide blue eyes (and he could see them now, they were definitely blue even in the moonlight). “Yer hurt,” he murmured, his voice a mere whisper of breath now that they were this close. He took up the wet towel and dabbed lightly at the skin, cleaning away the dirt and the grime with impossibly soft touches, but Bruce winced anyway. Fletch offered him another apology but didn’t stop until the wound had been cleaned.

Bruce’s face was next, the dirt and the grime and the salt of dried tears wiped with the same care and gentleness as his hands. At a gesture, he presented his other hand, watching Fletch’s face as he cleaned the skin, eyes so full of concentration, lips pressed together, a thin line of concentration worried between his eyebrows. He was so gentle, so careful, meticulously cleaning every bit of dirt from the wounds.

“Can I...” he started, making an abortive gesture at the blanket. Bruce clenched it tighter around himself on reflex before forcing himself to relax. The blanket slid away to reveal the rest of his body and Fletch drew a breath in through his teeth. “Damn,” the boy mumbled, not bothering to apologize for the word this time. He frowned, and Bruce nearly reached for the blanket again, but Fletch’s hands stopped him. “No, no, not you, s’jus’... I... I cain’t believe they went n’ did this to ya,” he explained, and Bruce lowered his hands to his thighs again.

“S’not fair,” Fletch continued in a grumble, leaning forward to begin toweling away the dirt and grime on Bruce’s neck, shoulders, arms, and chest. As he moved, his face cut across the moonlight that shone through the bars. Bruce saw it, then, the mottled pale green and yellow and splotched pink of a healing bruise skirting around the edge of his jaw just below his ear. A cut that trailed up into his hair line along the curve of his cheek, mostly healed with the perforated red line of scabs dotting their way along the mark. A burst blood vessel in the corner of his eye that made his entire face twitch, just barely, with every blink.

It wasn’t just him, but somehow, the knowledge didn’t make him feel any better.

Fletch talked to him about nothing. Not about the carnival, not about travels, not about the places he’d been. He talked mindless nonsense to him, rattling on about how he took care of his bow, the steps he took to dismantle it and clean it and put it back together, how he strung it, what he strung it with, how he cared for the strings, how he made his arrows, what he made them with, what sort of feathers he used for fletching (it made more sense to Bruce, now, why he called himself Fletch), his favorite kind of birds, birds were his favorite animal, he’d be a bird if he could.

He went on and on, his voice soft and soothing, and Bruce closed his eyes as he listened to the sound without hearing the words because the words didn’t matter. Fletch was talking to calm himself, but he was also talking to calm Bruce. When Bruce opened his eyes again, he saw that Fletch was gently stroking places that were already cleaned and his eyes had gone vaguely distant as he spoke. He wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing any more than Bruce was.

Reaching up, he took Fletch’s wrist to stop him, and the boy’s voice stuttered as he made eye contact. “Oh. Sorry,” he said, pulling his hand back slowly. “I jus’...”

Bruce shook his head at the apology.

Fletch watched him before nodding, putting the mostly-dry towel away and hunting through the bag again. “I shoulda given ya this first, but, uh, you were hurt an’... I jus’...” He pulled out a packet of sandwiches, an entire stack of them, and a flask that was full of water.

“Thank you,” Bruce mumbled as he took the food from Fletch’s hands. There was a long pause of silence that would have been dead and absolute, had the crickets outside been silent. He then said, “You can... um... keep talking.”

Fletch blinked a few times before smiling sheepishly and starting to speak once more. He began haltingly, but as Bruce ate the sandwiches that he’d brought, he became more animated. Happier. Fletch liked talking, about anything and everything, and Bruce was beginning to discover that he liked it when Fletch talked.

The boy might have been seven and small for his age, but there was something so huge and almost – almost – mature about him that drew him in. The boy was a circle of light, bright as the sun and equally warm. He wanted to be near him; it had been a long, long time since he had been near anyone that had made him feel happy, safe, wanted, _liked_.

No. Not a long time. He had never felt liked.

And Fletch liked him.

He finished the sandwiches and water to the sound of Fletch’s happy, if muted, chatter and handed back the wrapper and flask. “Thanks,” Fletch whispered, tucking the items away. “Got ya one last thing. S’a new blanket,” he said, pulling the folded cloth out from the bottom of the bag and offering it over. It was the same color as the one still settled behind him, but larger, softer, and warmer; obviously better quality. No one would notice it had been replaced unless they looked closely at it, and no one looked closely at him.

After a mumbled thank you, Bruce passed over the old blanket, embarrassingly dirty from having been wrapped around him for so long. Fletch didn’t comment, shoving it in the bag rather unceremoniously. As he got up to leave, Bruce muttered, “Jade.”

“Huh?” Fletch asked, turning around with his hand on the wooden door.

“You... you can call me Jade.”

“Jade...” Fletch’s face broke into a wide grin and he nodded once. “Yeah. I like that. Okay, Jade, I’ll see ya tomorrow night.” He got the door open and snuck out, shutting it behind him as quietly as possible.

Bruce had just swaddled himself back in the blanket, tucking himself into the corner, when he heard the sound of Fletch scrabbling up the windowed side of his car again. The sudden movement startled him, but he merely offered the boy a smile as he poked his head up over the edge. “I jus’ thought of somethin’!” he said brightly, his stage-whisper having returned.

“What?” Bruce stage-whispered back.

“We ain’t gonna stay here forever,” Fletch said seriously, though he was grinning as he did so. “You an’ me? We’re both better than this place. An’ one day, we’re gonna get outta here. We’re gonna run away together.”

And then he was gone.

Bruce laughed quietly. The words... they were amusing. He couldn’t help laughing.

But he didn’t doubt them, either.

\---

Life continued this way for four years.

They traveled the country. Bruce remained a sideshow. Each place they stopped, the show lasted four days, weather permitting. He was displayed as many times a day as a crowd gathered, generally three. Eventually, he stopped fearing the crowd, so he stopped changing. That was when they resorted to the cattle prod.

He never got used to the pain. It never stopped making him angry. And when they discovered that, there was no turning back.

But Fletch visited him in his car, too. Whenever they forgot to lock the side door, he came inside, toweling him off and giving him food and occasionally clothes and fresh blankets. When the side door was locked, he still brought food, and he hung himself over the side of the car until his arms couldn’t take it anymore.

And he talked. He talked and he talked about anything, about nothing, repeating stories and repeating facts and telling him about his dreams and informing him about where they would go when they finally got out of this place.

Four years after the first promise, Fletch’s brother tried to kill him.

Four years after the first promise, Fletch’s brother set fire to Bruce’s train car.

Four years after the first promise, Fletch and Jade ran away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m starting to get a good idea of where this story is going. This one, in particular, is probably going to be about four~five chapters long, depending. It’s really more of a prologue than anything else. I want to keep the carnival section as short as possible, even though it’s four years of Bruce and Clint’s life, because I _really_ despise any and all depictions of child abuse but it was necessary for this story. So we’ll be leaving the Traveling Wonders soon enough.
> 
> Side note: Again, I know nothing about how carnivals and circuses work, but this is clearly an old-style carnival and I can’t imagine that, in a universe like this, the sideshow acts would be treated all that well (or even like human beings).


	3. The Fires of Alcohol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaah I’m getting comments I love it. I love you people. So much. About Bruce’s nickname: yep, it’s because Clint calls him Jade Jaws (I can tie things in like a pro). Plus, it’s something that’s actually a name while still being a nickname, which seems a very Bruce-like thing, to me. Warning for the next chapter: impending sadness, prepare to duck. Warning for the rest of the series (since a few people have professed to being hooked): I am overly fond of angst, so this series is going to have a great deal of it with an ultimately happy ending. Proceed at your own risk.
> 
> Additional note: This has been a REALLY bad month for me. I lost my job so I had to go job hunting, the transmission went out on my car, I got sick again... long story short, I haven’t had any time for anything that I love recently and dropped off the face of the planet. But things are good now, or as good as they get, so I’m back on schedule with this. It’s been plaguing my mind while I’ve been away, don’t worry. Also, I don’t really like this chapter very much, but it was providing a block and I just wanted to get over it. I’m sorry in advance.

The words were going clean over his head, like they usually did on nights like this. It wasn’t raining, but it was acting like it could, the air thick with moisture and the tell-tale sounds of thunder rumbling far in the distance. If Clint craned his neck, he could see through the window of his train car; rolling clouds, miles away, occasionally glowing from within with soft cracks of lightning.

He sighed and settled back down against his pillows. He hated storms. He let the sounds of others talking wash over him; closest to him were Barney and Buck, and he couldn’t have cared less what they were talking about, anyway. At the moment, Clint’s mind (easily distracted and currently severely unfocused even for a boy of eleven) was currently somewhere down the train, on the train car that held his best (only) friend in the entire world. His eyes were unfocused as he watched the sky outside the window, the mouth of his bottle of watered down whiskey pressed to his lips.

To help them sleep, the men said.

To keep them docile, more like.

At least they got food regularly. Clint didn’t like to think of how often he had gone to Jade and saw that he hadn’t eaten since the last time he’d seen him. He didn’t like to think, either, of the number of times he’d had to cut his own rations in half (in more than half) to ensure that the other boy just survived. Jade was older than Clint, taller and with broader shoulders, but there was something so fragile about him. Maybe it was the way he was always hunched in on himself, or the wild tangle of black hair that fell in his eyes and hid his features from the world.

Clint wanted to protect him.

He realized his error in spacing out when a hand reached out, palm boxing him on the ear, air pressure making a thunderously loud pop against his ear drum that had him hissing in surprise and pain. “Ow!”

“Ain’t you list’nin’? I’m talkin’ to ya!” Clint raised his hand to rub the ear gingerly, eyes watering even as he glared daggers at Barney. His brother was older and bigger but, unlike Jade, he was broad and strong and could heft him around like a sack of potatoes. He’d been drinking, too, by the obvious slur in his voice. Corn liquor; not like Clint knew where he’d gotten it, but he could distinctly smell it. The other kids in the car laughed and Clint flipped them off almost immediately.

“Whaddya want?” he asked, unable to keep the edge out of his voice as he checked his hand for blood. Wouldn’t have been the first time he’d gotten such an injury from his brother when he’d been drinking.

“I asked ya a question,” Barney said, and across from him, Buck smirked and took a pull from the bottle in his hands.

“And I’m tellin’ ya to repeat it,” Clint shot back, ducking just enough that the next blow glanced off his head rather than catching him fully in the ear again. His left arm snapped up, catching his brother just below the armpit in a hard jab that made him cry out in pain.

Buck was outright laughing at this point. “You’re getting your ass kicked by an eleven year old,” he said with a cruel smirk.

“Fuck off, Trickshot,” Clint and Barney shot back in unison, the latter’s voice stilted with pain even as he got to his feet. The rest of the car had gone quiet, as it usually did when one of these fights started; Clint had begun giving back almost as good as he got since age ten, but it was always short lived. Until he was as big as Barney, he’d never be able to hold his own against him... and, privately, Clint was sure he’d never get as big as Barney.

But he was small, fast, and agile, and the scrapping got longer each time they fought. A punch to the jaw, duck, dodge, elbow to the shoulder, knee to the thigh, punch to the ribs, punch to the sternum, punch to the stomach, leg around one of his own, pull, back against the floor hard, breath out in a rush. Clint coughed once, twice, the lamplight fuzzy from the force of his head slamming into the floor. Murmured words around him, like listening through water.

Dizzy. Shoulder: hurting. Back: hurting. Head: hurting. Ear: still hurting.

A foot connected with the side of his neck and he choked before coughing again, rolling instinctively away from the pain.

Throat: hurting.

He drew in sharp, wet breaths and pushed himself up onto his elbows, the relief short lived as Barney’s foot came up and connected with the underside of his jaw. He crashed back against the floor. He tasted iron.

“Calm down,” someone was saying, and there was some arguing, but Clint could barely hear it over the ringing in his own ears. No one moved to help him up, but no one moved to hurt him, either; he took the time to get his bearings back before he rolled over and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet.

He was out of the car before anyone knew he was gone.

\---

The air was even thicker outside as he made his way down the track, bare feet skipping over the metal rails as he passed car after car. The acrobats, the clowns, the jugglers and fire-breathers and contortionists, the animals, and finally the sideshows in their own private cars.

_Can’t have the freaks mingling_ , wasn’t that what they said?

The paint up the side of Jade’s car was scratched and scuffed, but Clint only noticed because he was the one who’d put the scuffs there to begin with. He knew the door was locked because he’d checked last night. He crouched down before leaping, nowhere near as high as he’d had to in the past, hands seizing onto the bars with a practiced familiarity. Of course, he usually wasn’t in so much pain at this point, and his breath hissed through his clenched teeth as his sore and bruising ribs hit the side of the car. With a muffled grunt, he pulled himself up again, hooking arms in the bars and peering into the dark car. “ _Jade_ ,” he hissed, watching for the shadow moving within shadows before the other boy padded over to the bars.

Jade reached up, wrapping his hands around the bars just over Clint’s arms. “What happened?”

Clint blinked at him before raising his hand enough to thumb at a split on his lower lip. He winced, tonguing at it lightly but stopping before Jade could chide him. “Nothin’. Jus’, ya know, a fight with my brother.”

“I don’t like your brother,” Jade said, his quiet voice toeing the line between the cracking of puberty and the deeper tones of manhood.

Clint grinned at him, though it was subdued to keep his lip from opening again. “Yeah, I know. Me neither. S’not why I came. I jus’ wanted ta see ya. S’okay, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jade nodded. The pad of his thumb touched Clint’s lip and he winced again, but didn’t jerk his head away. He didn’t want to admit it – he’d never say it out loud – but the fact that Jade always showed concern for him made him feel warm and fuzzy.

What was the word? A crush. Yeah, definitely, he didn’t mind admitting he had a crush on the boy monster. ...well, again, not out loud, but...

Jade was talking. Clint looked back to his face, returning to eye contact. “...if you aren’t careful.”

“Huh?”

Jade’s expression was exasperated, but there was a fondness in it that just made Clint’s grin return. “I said you’re going to get scars on your face if you aren’t careful.”

“That’s okay,” Clint said, shaking his head. “Scars give ya character. An’ I’m gonna be a badass secret agent one day, so’s I need scars ta look the part!”

Jade tried to look stern, but he was barely managing to suppress his smile. “You’d be a terrible secret agent. You’re nowhere near stealthy enough.”

“Nuh-uh!”

“And if you want to be a secret agent, you can’t have any scars. You’d be too easy to recognize.”

...he hadn’t thought of that part. Damn. “Okay, okay, I’ll be careful.”

They spoke quietly, Jade’s hands on the bars just above his arms, Clint rattling on even as he felt his bare feet losing purchase on the wood. The gentle rumbling of thunder and murmuring of their voices was Clint’s only explanation for why he was not expecting what happened next.

He frequently visited Jade after a fight with his brother. It calmed him down, ensured he wouldn’t pick another fight when he went back to get some sleep, made sure they’d have relative peace in their train car the next day while Barney was nursing his hangover. It was a routine that almost never varied.

Almost.

He didn’t anticipate the strong grip on his calves that pulled him away from the wall of the car, jerking his arms painfully and causing his jaw to snap shut painfully the second time that night. Blood burst in his mouth as he bit into his tongue, and he hit the rocky ground on the side of the tracks with his injured shoulder. He heard Jade call out to him but didn’t really hear him, a kick connecting with the side of his head almost the moment he’d hit the ground.

“I told ya t’ stay away from here,” Barney hissed above him. Bizarrely, Clint was glad that his brother was barefoot as well; he’d been kicked in the head with a boot before, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation.

“Get away from him!” Jade yelled, but Barney turned around and slammed his fist into the side of the car.

It had to have hurt, but Barney just let out a low hiss before yelling back, “Shut the fuck up, freak! Ain’t none of yer business what I do!”

Clint’s head was spinning and nausea pooled in the pit of his stomach as he turned his head to the side. He spat out a mouthful of blood before his gaze moved back to his brother. Drunker than he had been when he’d left. “Don’t... talk t’him like that...” His voice wasn’t half as strong as he needed it to be, but he had the chance to get back up to his feet.

“It’s that monster’s fault, ain’t it?” Barney slurred, his voice rising with his anger. “He’s changin’ ya, an’ I don’t like it! It ain’t right, ya spendin’ so much time with him! He’s gonna infect ya!”

“No, he ain’t!” Clint’s own voice was rising, but he hardly cared. He lunged forward, but for being drunk, Barney was surprisingly agile. Hands seized his upper arms and spun him around, slamming him with great force against the side of Jade’s car. Clint could feel the bruises rising already from his repeated contact with the ground, and he was unable to help a cry that sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

“Leave him alone!” That was Jade. An arm came out of the car and swiped at Barney’s head, but it was too far up to make any sort of contact.

“...it’s already happenin’,” Barney muttered before he pulled Clint forward just slightly, slamming him back again.

Once more, twice, three times, and the world swam before going dark.

\---

He heard the four successive thuds against the side of his car and he didn’t know what to do.

Bruce pulled himself up as best he could, but for all the time that he’d spent in this place, he still didn’t have the upper arm strength that Fletch possessed. It took him a long moment to pull himself up far enough that he could see down to the ground, where Fletch’s brother (he didn’t even know his name) had flung the small archer to the ground. From the way he rolled and ultimately came to a stop a short distance away, Fletch was out cold.

“Fletch!” Bruce called, shaking the bars a bit in his desperation to get through them and make sure the boy was all right. “ _Fletch_!”

"Shut _up_!” the brother yelled, slamming his fist into the side of the train car again. “Yer makin’ my brother into somethin’ I don’t even know! He’s already lost, ain’t he? Well, you can’t have him!” With the noise he was making, Bruce wasn’t sure how they hadn’t attracted anyone’s attention yet. He debated calling for help, but if someone came, _would_ they help? Would he just make the situation worse somehow, both for himself and for Fletch?

“Yer a fuckin’ menace, you freak, an’ you’ve gone and taken my brother from me! I ain’t gonna let you get away with that!”

“You’re crazy!” Bruce yelled through the bars. “And you’re drunk, and you’re making no sense! I haven’t done anything to you!”

He couldn’t see the brother anymore. He could see Fletch, but barely; the sky had darkened rapidly as it did this time of year and the smell of rain was heavy on the horizon. But that wasn’t the only smell that was reaching Bruce’s nostrils. Smoke, heavy and sharp, from a woodfire... and a slowly growing heat below his feet.

His brain caught up with the situation the same moment that smoke, heavy and black, began billowing from beneath his window. His train car was on fire.

Fear. Anger. Concern. Protectiveness. A cacophony of noise in his head, building and building, stronger than that during his forced shows before the crowds that gathered before his cage and jeered. Bruce fell back to the ground, clenching his head in his hands, a slow scream building up in his chest and rising before his awareness was suddenly gone.

\---

When he woke up, it was raining.

Heavy drops of water, so cold he could feel his skin freezing, splashed against Clint’s face and made him twitch heavily. He groaned quietly, the sound turning into a moan of misery as he felt hands grab him beneath the armpits and haul him backwards along uneven, rocky ground. The rainfall abruptly stopped but the shivering did not. He was released, left to lie against what felt like a natural stone floor.

“I’m sorry.” That was Jade’s voice, hoarse and rough with overuse and something else. Misery? Clint opened one eye just slightly and turned his head, though the movement nearly made him nauseous. Jade was staring at an arrangement of wet sticks as though they had personally offended him, his arms wrapped tightly around himself and his brow furrowed in thought. “I can’t... everything is so wet, and I don’t know how...” He sighed, closing his eyes, before he looked at Clint. The apology was written all over his face, clear as day.

Clint tried to respond, but his throat was stuck and it took a round of painful clearing before he could make it work again. “S’kay,” he said weakly, opening both eyes halfway and looking the other male over to take his appearance in as best he could. “What...” The rest of the question went unsaid, mostly because he didn’t have any faith in his ability to finish it.

“I don’t know,” Jade said, looking back to the sticks that should have made a fire and probably would have if it hadn’t been for the truly torrential downpour outside the small cave they’d holed up in. “Your brother, he... went crazy. I think.”

“Nah. Always like that.” Now that his mind was gaining clarity, his voice and his body seemed to be gathering some semblance of strength. Clint pushed himself up into a sitting position that he nearly lost immediately, but a strong arm moved out to wrap around his shoulders and keep him upright. Jade was cold, too, but he wasn’t half as cold as Clint and the smaller male found himself curling into that barely-there warmth immediately. “S-sorry,” he muttered as the shiver came through again, though he didn’t make an effort to pull himself away again.

Jade said nothing, but he did pull Clint back with him a bit until they were both leaning up against the curved wall behind them. Their space was so small that they would have had barely enough room to stretch out from the back wall to the entrance, but it was dry and the wind and rain weren’t creeping in. Clint made a great effort to wrap his arms around his knees and leaned into Jade’s side, tucking his head up underneath the other’s chin.

They were silent for a long moment as Clint contemplated their next move. They didn’t have any food, but they also didn’t know where they were so it wasn’t like they could just go haring off without a care in the world. It was still dark and while his body was no longer screaming with pain, it was definitely moaning with it. No real movement tonight, then. “My bro, he...” Clint trailed off a bit, speaking so quietly he wasn’t even sure Jade could hear him. “He was always real protective of me, right? An’... he jus’... I dunno. Wanted to keep me safe. But he drank.”

It was horrible to acknowledge the fact that his voice wasn’t gaining more strength as he spoke, but he didn’t stop. He felt it was something that needed to be said. “When he drank, he... jus’... I dunno. It weren’t him in there. An’ I thought... I could deal with it, iffin I had to. I mean, he never got that bad. But then I met you an’ he found out an’ he... he got real mad at me.” Clint huffed out a breath that was almost amusement, his eyes drifting shut. “Said I weren’t supposed t’ come see ya no more. Said it was bad. He didn’t like how I’d talk back when I grew up. Said it were yer fault,” he said, keeping his eyes closed. “Wouldn’t listen t’ me when I said it weren’t. Jus’ made ‘im madder. An’ he drank lots tonight, before we fought, and prolly more after that.”

He swallowed hard, his throat clicking with the effort. “M’sorry,” he mumbled. “Was my fault, what happened. I shouldn’t’ve come to ya. Brought him straight there.”

“Don’t apologize,” Jade said, his words soft but sharp enough that Clint stopped speaking immediately. “What happened... it wasn’t your fault at all. He shouldn’t have acted like that. ...after you... were knocked unconscious,” he said, his voice stumbling a bit over the words like he didn’t want to remember them, “he set my train car on fire. I’m not burned,” he added quickly as he felt Clint almost move to sit up and look at him. “I’m fine. Stay there, you’re really bruised and you were bleeding.”

Clint nodded once and settled back down. It had just started to get a bit warmer. “What happened?”

There was a stretch of silence so long that Clint almost thought Jade wouldn’t answer him. “I don’t know,” he finally said, his words quiet as though admitting something he was afraid of Clint knowing. “I just got... I was angry at him and I was scared for you, and I think I just... blacked out. That’s never happened to me before,” he added quietly, turning his head away. "...then, uh, when I came back to myself... we were in the rain and the train was nowhere in sight. I have no idea where I brought you."

“...you ain’t hurt none?”

“No. I’m not hurt.”

Clint sighed but nodded, burrowing further into Jade’s side and ignoring the hurt of his own wounds. There was another long pause before he said, “...y’know, we don’t really... know nothin’ about each other. Not really.”

Jade nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

“Should we...?”

“No,” Jade said almost immediately. “I don’t want you to know about my past, and I don’t need to know yours. It doesn’t matter who I was before we met, who you were. All that matters is now. I’m Jade, you’re Fletch, and we escaped the traveling wonders together. That’s it.” The strength left his voice then as he muttered, “...I mean... it’s... okay if that’s it, right?”

“Yeah,” Clint muttered, an exhausted smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “That’s okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUGH I finally got this stupid thing done. And yeah, I still don’t like it, but I’ve rewritten it so many times that I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never like it and will therefore never post anything so I should just bite the bullet and do it now. Next chapter will probably be the last part of this little prequel.


	4. The Hulk and Hawkeye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently, saying that I’ll be able to stick to a better schedule is the same as saying to the forces in charge of my life “please make things complicated for a while” so I’m not going to be doing that anymore. Suffice it to say, I’ll be updating when I can. For those of you who don’t want to stick around, I totally understand, but for those of you who have, thank you! I’m going to go play fast and loose with Marvel canon now.

Bruce blew lightly on the small fire he’d managed to conjure up (and it really had felt like something of a magical feat by the time he was finished), watching as it caught some of the dry leaves and twigs Fletch had found as tinder. Their abode wasn’t much; the cave was just as small and cramped as it had been that first night three months ago, but Fletch had taught him how to light a fire using a couple of dry rocks or sticks and they’d found enough leaves and long grass to make a rather respectable bed.

Well, respectable for a bed made of leaves and long grass, anyway.

“I got some fish,” Fletch said as he came up close enough to their little cave that might as well have been called home by now. He’d gotten rather adept at actually shooting the fish that jumped out of the water of the nearby river with a bow and arrow set he’d made himself. He sat next to the fire and picked up the sharpened rock they’d been using as a knife, working on scaling the fish as carefully as possible. It was still a messy business, but he’d gotten a lot better at not taking out huge chunks of meat in the time they’d been living out here, and Bruce knew the boy was probably a lot better at it than he was.

Soon, the fish were cooking on sticks and water had been gathered from the river. It wasn’t much (as Fletch would say, it “weren’t nothin’ at all, really”), but there were worse situations. Far worse. They had been sitting in silence for long minutes when Fletch finally looked up at the steadily darkening sky and said, “D’ya think they ever noticed we was gone?”

Bruce looked at him before smiling and turning his gaze back to the fire. “I’m sure they did,” he said. “After all, they’re missing their star acrobatic act.”

He could hear the grin in Fletch’s voice as he said, “Yeah,” and fell backwards to lie on the ground. More silence passed before the boy continued, “Wonder where they got off to.”

“Who knows?” Bruce said quietly. He pulled the fish off the fire and passed Fletch’s stick over to him. The boy mumbled and tossed it from hand to hand, waiting for it to cool, before taking a bite out of the meat. “Watch the bones,” Bruce added, knowing the warning was needless but feeling it was necessary to say it anyway.

“Y’know, we could go an’ do anythin’,” Fletch said to the sky around a mouthful of fish. “Whaddya wanna do?”

“If we go to a town, we’ll be in trouble.” Bruce sighed, running his hand back through his hair. “We don’t have no- we don’t...” He laughed softly over Fletch’s giggling; he was starting to pick up the younger boy’s speech patterns, and that was the last thing he needed. “We don’t have any adults, guardians... they might end up putting us into foster care or something. Separate foster care.”

“Nope,” Fletch said immediately. “Won’t go. I don’t care what nobody says, I’m gonna stick with you.”

“We might have to be separated, one day.”

“Iffin’ that happens, I’m gonna follow you,” Fletch said. “No matter what, I’m gonna find you. You an’ me? It’s like... uh... fate, or somethin’. I ain’t gonna grow old without ya.”

“You make it sound like we’re going to get married.”

“Maybe we will!” Fletch sounded very enthusiastic about this idea as he turned over onto his stomach to stare up at Bruce with his wide blue-grey eyes. He grinned at him. “Okay, so, how ‘bout it? You an’ me, we’ll get married.”

“Boys can’t get married,” Bruce laughed, though his amusement was tinged with shy embarrassment that Fletch quickly picked up on. Bruce laughed again and ducked his head at Fletch’s grin. “Besides, what if you want to marry a woman when you get older?”

“Girls have cooties,” Fletch said reasonably as he threw the remainder of his fish into the fire and started poking Bruce’s forearm with his stick. “So come on,” he continued, his voice turning wheedling and slightly whiny. “Even if it’s not, like, legal, we could get married when we’re older.”

“We’ll see,” Bruce laughed as he batted at the stick with both hands. There was a brief struggle before Bruce managed to get it away from Fletch and held it up out of his reach.

“S’my stick!”

“Don’t poke me with it.”

After a bunch of ineffectual flailing, Fletch tossed himself back to the ground and rolled around a bit, starting to babble again. Bruce wasn’t really listening that closely, just letting the sound wash over him as he laid down on the ground as well.

They didn’t have a great life, or even necessarily a good one, but it was theirs and that was more than he could say about the past four years of his life. This was his. And that was why he knew it probably couldn’t last.

\----------

Six months later, they had an accident.

Clint knew it was his fault. He had insisted that they needed to go into the nearby town to try and get food besides fish. It wasn’t the first time they’d gone and stolen bread, vegetables, fruit, and milk. They’d done it lots of times before. The difference was that they hadn’t gotten caught before.

They could have handled it if they’d been able to just run, but a man had grabbed Jade by the arm. It had scared him, their first real “adult” contact in nearly a year and Clint knew that his past experiences weren’t good as it was. It had scared him, and he had changed a bit. Not a lot, but it had been enough.

They’d run. But the problem was that they’d already been seen and the police had already been called on them. Clint knew how to interact with people, how to talk to them, and might have been able to get them out of the situation, but... Jade didn’t. Jade was almost feral in a lot of ways, having spent so long in a cage or a cave with no company but Clint himself.

When the police found them, Jade got scared... and worse, Jade got angry. Clint had never seen Jade really and truly _angry_ before and he wondered if this was what he had missed the night the train car had been set on fire. He wasn’t listening to reason, but he was still a fourteen year old kid under all of that. He didn’t stand a chance against them.

Clint bit and kicked and screamed but he didn’t stand a chance either. They were pulled apart. He heard them say that he was going to go to the station while Jade was going... he didn’t understand what they said and even though he asked no one would tell him. They had to throw him in the police car because he wouldn’t go quietly, and when they got to the station, they had to throw him in a holding cell because he wouldn’t sit still.

No matter how much he asked about Jade, no one would tell him what happened.

Fletch and Jade did not see each other again for twenty years.

\----------

Underground, it was hard to judge the passage of time. You slept when you were tired (and allowed to sleep), you ate when you were hungry (and given food), and you... well. You punched the people who came into your cell until they subdued you.

Bruce had completely lost track of how long he had been there when the strangest thing happened: the lights flickered, dimmed, died, and then came back on with a soft yellow glow. Emergency lights, he thought, as he got up off the floor and moved onto his bed. He pressed himself into the corner, staring at the heavy iron door that he had not been able to escape through, and the opening of which typically meant a great deal of pain was coming.

The door opened, but it was not a scientist or a soldier that stepped in.

He was a young man; he looked barely older than Bruce himself. Jeans, tee shirt, ratty sneakers, hair that looked like the artfully tousled, just-too-long look he’d seen on rich kids at the carnival right before they threw their food at him.

Bruce instantly hated him.

“Get out,” he snarled, his voice rusty and guttural from disuse.

“Hey, man, it’s cool,” the other boy said as he raised his hands in a placating gesture, though Bruce was glad to see he did take a step back. “No need for that, I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Who are you and what do you want?”

The boy lowered his hands to shove them in his pockets again, studying Bruce beneath the sick yellow light of the underground room. “Look, we don’t have a lot of time, okay?” he said before sighing, tilting his head a little and looking away. “I’m here to make you an offer. It’s a one-time only thing, we can’t afford to do this again. It’s already risky and my dad’s gonna have to sign a shitton of paperwork to get this under the radar and...” He sighed and looked at Bruce again. “I want you to come with me. You don’t have to but the other option is just staying here.”

“You want me to come with you and do what?”

“Look, man, I’m not here to hurt you,” the other boy said. “But I’m not gonna lie to you. My dad, he’s something of a...” He waved one hand over his head a little as though trying to think of what he wanted to say. “An eccentric. A scientist- no, not like that,” he added as Bruce practically snarled at him. “Nobody wants to hurt you, I swear to god, okay? At least, we don’t. But he’s interested in you. So am I. You can stay here or you can come with me, those are your choices. Make up your mind, princess, we really have like ten minutes to get out of here.”

Bruce left with him.

The maze-like hallways that he vaguely remembered being dragged down were oddly quiet and empty, but the other boy wasn’t talking and Bruce was more than happy to stay silent as they walked. When the door to the outside was open, he nearly expected blinding light, but it was apparently the middle of the night. They stepped out into an arid desert night, and the dry breeze felt incredible on Bruce’s skin.

“Come on,” the boy said as he moved over to a waiting truck.

Bruce followed him, then hesitated. “I’m out. Why should I follow you?”

“Because you’re in the middle of the Mojave Desert and if you don’t come with me you’re going to fry your brains in about...” He checked his watch. “...six hours.”

That was good enough for Bruce; there would be other opportunities, and he wouldn’t hesitate to take them. “Who are you, anyway?” he asked as he pulled himself into the back of the truck. It was air-conditioned, he noticed immediately, and he sank against the plush leather seats without even wondering why the hell this truck had leather seats.

“Tony Stark’s the name,” the boy said, tapping his forehead in a mock salute. “Nobody’s got a name on you. Want to tell me?”

Bruce thought, not for the first time, that he had never told Fletch his real name. He wished, not for the first time, that he had.

“Bruce Banner.”

Tony grinned before reaching up and knocking on the window that separated the front and back seats. “Dad, we got him!” he called, and the glass slid to reveal a man who focused on Bruce with a wide grin. Bruce sank back into his seat, feeling immediately very, very vulnerable.

“Don’t look so scared, kiddo,” the man said. “Howard Stark. We’re gonna have a good time, the three of us. I promise you that.”

\----------

“You look for someone.”

Clint nearly leaped out of his skin, the voice that suddenly addressed him having been mere inches behind him. He stumbled and turned, raising his bow and nocking an arrow in a smooth movement. The girl on the other side of the shaft didn’t look scared or even that impressed. She cocked her hip and leveled him with a glare. “Get out of face.”

Her accent was weird and Clint couldn’t place it. He frowned at her before shaking his head, keeping the arrow pointed at her throat. “Whaddya want?” he asked, narrowing his eyes and shifting one step backwards when she stepped towards him.

“You are good archer,” she said quietly. “I am...” She trailed off a little, looking uncomfortable, before rubbing her hands together. “Recruiting.”

“I don’t do shit for other people,” Clint said, narrowing his eyes.

“You are twelve, maybe?”

“I’m thirteen!” Repeating his age made him realize, with a hard pang, that he’d been looking for Jade for two years. He hadn’t had any luck, either. But that was temporary, surely. He’d find him without a problem. He had to.

The girl waved her hand dismissively. “You look for someone. You will not find, not your way. Come with me,” she said. She reached up and put her fingers on the tip of his arrow, pushing it down. Clint was so surprised he found himself lowering his bow with just her gentle prodding. “You need better work. Better...” She sighed, trying to come up with the right word and failing. “Coulson, he will explain better.”

“Are you sayin’ iffin’ I come with you I’ll be able t’ find who I’m lookin’ for?”

The girl stared at him for a very long time as though she had no idea what he was trying to say before she nodded, tentatively.

“Then yeah. I’ll go with ya.”

That, she understood, and she looked relieved. “Good. You are S.H.I.E.L.D. recruit, trainee, like me.” She shifted once before admitting, “Me, I am thirteen, too.”

She walked off. Clint looked over the edge of the roof, down to the street he had been scouting, before turning away and following her. Jade hadn’t been there, anyway.

\----------

Bruce Banner quickly found what Howard Stark wanted with him: samples of his blood, nothing more. Strange as it was, he found himself almost adopted by the Stark family, mostly because they very quickly found that he had a very good mind for science. Being tutored by a voice that seemed to come from nowhere was very strange, but Jarvis was an excellent teacher and, moreover, Bruce was an excellent student. He caught up to where Tony was in his studies in two years, and surpassed him in another (mostly because Tony couldn’t be bothered to actually study unless threatened with grievous bodily harm).

When Bruce was eighteen, the first time he became angry... it was horrible. The mutation that he’d held since he was four had matured, as Howard put it, and Bruce blacked out entirely. The way Tony described the “big green rage monster” wasn’t putting him at ease, either, but steps were taken. Preventative measures, they called them, though Bruce knew a tranquilizer when he saw it.

They called it the Hulk.

Howard and Maria were killed in a car accident when Tony was twenty years old. Rumors of the Winter Soldier went completely ignored and, after a fashion, Tony inherited Stark Industries. He’d already finished college, and he promised Bruce that they would work on it together one Bruce had completed his studies as well.

While working on his studies of gamma radiation, Bruce met a young woman by the name of Betty Ross.

It never went anywhere serious, and on some level, Bruce was glad of it.

Bruce was left in charge of Stark Industries when Tony went to Afghanistan. When he returned with an arc reactor keeping shrapnel out of his heart, Bruce helped him to build a better one. He didn’t help much with the Iron Man suit, though, because he thought it was a thoroughly stupid idea and wasn’t going to contribute to Tony dying early in life. (He did, however, move his own car out of the garage to make sure it didn’t suffer the same fate as some of Tony’s had during his trials.)

How they managed to keep the Hulk a secret was beyond him, but he learned to suppress it. Not completely, of course, but he learned the trick to keeping it under control.

It wasn’t long after Tony was approached by a man named Nick Fury about something called the Avengers Initiative.

Bruce agreed to help Tony with his contract work, but they both agreed that the Hulk was to be kept very firmly out of it.

\----------

Clint Barton did very well in his training. He liked Agent Coulson, and he liked Natasha (once he found out that was her name). He and Natasha worked very well together and spent most of their time off-duty together. When they were sixteen, they tried dating, but one kiss convinced them both that it was just too weird and there was no way they’d actually be able to go through with it. They finished training to be spies when they were seventeen and they began working as a part of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s strike team. As agents, they became somewhat legendary in their ability to work effectively together.

He and Natasha managed to lose their respective Iowan and Russian accents, though they were both informed they came back full-force when the two were drunk.

While he had been good with a bow when he was a child, Clint’s marksman abilities became nearly superhuman as he grew older. There was supposedly nothing that he couldn’t hit. He won a fair few bets that way, as well, though he did have to admit that his aim became less than stellar when he was both intoxicated and blindfolded.

People began to call him Hawkeye as his code name. He liked it.

Over his first ten years working as a spy, he broke almost every single bone in his body at least once, and many of them twice. He suffered bruises, cuts, scratches, gashes, concussions, and a remarkable case of temporary memory loss where one of the other strike team members managed to convince him that Agent Coulson was his adoptive father (despite the fact that Coulson was barely five years older than Clint himself). That had made for some awkward debriefings for about the next month.

Clint got a reputation for being something of a hard ass around S.H.I.E.L.D., which did nothing to diminish the level of respect he got from the recruits and the younger agents. Eventually, he and Natasha reported only to Coulson or Nick Fury himself, and when there were missions that supposedly no one could do, Hawkeye and Black Widow had them done in a week.

He was told he would be a S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison for the Avengers Initiative, and he agreed.

He had never found Jade. But he’d never forgotten about him, either.

It was at the first real meeting of the Avengers Initiative, marking the momentous occasion of the reawakening of Captain America, that Bruce Banner and Clint Barton met again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, prologue done. The next story will be on its own, have more avengers in it, have less prologue-ness and setting up and more story. Warning: there will be other pairings in the next story, but they won’t be focal points and you can ignore them for the most part if you’d like. Prepare for more angst before things get better.


End file.
